Three-barrels with a World Series of Poker link, including big six-figure scores landed in North America and Australia, and a pounding for Salomon Ponte.
Charles Johnson has taken down the World Series of Poker Circuit (WSOPC) Main Event in North Carolina after cruising through a final table containing as many former champions as you’ll see fleas on a dirty dog.
The WSOP and Harrah’s Cherokee tournament team were confident about this one, raising the bar to a $1m guarantee. 957 entrants created $1.4m in prize money. Johnson banked $272,744, a score way above his live tournament pay grade according to his Hendon Mob stats.
A hot sticky tar of former champions covered the final table.
Trung Pham won a gold ring in Choctaw at the beginning of the month, Ryan Jones slipped one on his finger at the Rio beating 945 entrants earlier this year, and in 2015 Krzysztof Stybaniewicz beat 1,376 entrants at Horseshoe Hammond to collect his nugget of gold.
And then you had David Jackson, the man on fire.
Jackson had earned a gold ring by winning Event #3 $580 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em for just shy of $40,000, and locked up the Casino Championship after finishing seventh in the Main Event, and will now take a seat in the Global Casino Championship.
Johnson joins him after escaping from James Moon’s orbit in heads-up action. The eight-time WSOPC gold ring winner Robert Hankins finished 18th.
Final Table Results
1. Charles Johnson Jr. – $272,744
2. James Moon – $168,700
3. John Whitlow – $124,515
4. Edwin Yancey – $93,164
5. Krzysztof Stybaniewicz – $70,584
6. Nathan Gentry – $54,147
7. David Jackson – $42,046
8. Ryan Jones – $33,060
9. Trung Pham – $26,698
Hopping Continents: Johan Lees Wins in Sydney
The Aussies came out in their droves to pay respect to the WSOPC machine when it landed in Sydney last week.
The Star Casino welcomed a record 1,357 entrants to the WSOPC Opening Event, and after a six-day marathon, Johan Lees took the gold ring and $105,416 in prize money.
Allen Kessler may believe that re-entry events spoil the recreational player’s chances for success, but there was no evidence of that in the Star Casino. Only Unensaikhan Bolovson having any form on his Hendon Mob rap sheet, once beating 811 entrants to win $47,238 in an A$330 buy-in event at the same venue.
The first of 13 gold ring events saw Lees enter the heads-up phase with a slight chip deficit after his opponent Matthew Velcic had turned into a one-man wrecking machine, sending six of the final eight players to the rail.
But he couldn’t make it seven.
Lees spurred on by a fervent rail, came from behind to take the title.
Final Table Results
1. Johan Lees – $105,416
2. Matthew Velcic – $65,539
3. Carlos Youssef – $47,881
4. David Dai – $36,400
5. Daniel Franks – $27,711
6. Nathan Kiely – $21,342
7. Unensaikhan Bolovson – $16,627
8. Toby Bentall – $13,104
9. Declan Russel – $10,448
Salomon Ponte Battered?
He could have played in Sydney, but they wouldn’t have let him through the door at Cherokee.
I’m talking about Salomon Ponte, the self-professed hashtagking, who jutted out of the poker community like a gargoyle after a somewhat controversial appearance on Poker Night in America earlier this year.
You may remember that Ponte used some rather harsh language to rib Shaun Deeb, including verbally abusing Deeb’s wife. A move that saw Live at the Bike remove him from their cash game schedule. Twitter also banned him for his controversial views.
But the one that hurt was a ban delivered by Caesars for acting like a cock on one of their properties. And we all know, if you play with knives in a Caesars property, then you’re going to get your WSOP privileges sliced off.
Ponte begged the WSOP to reconsider, and allow him to play the Main Event. Seth Palansky replied in the negative, advising the hashtagking to find a way to get better self-control and to make better decisions.
I’m not sure he was listening.
Toronto police have released video footage of a man having his arse handed to him on a plate by a big bad dude you wouldn’t want to screw with. You can’t see the victim because his face is blurred, but a post on 2+2 alleges that it’s Ponte. It seems Ponte wrote about the incident on Twitter, but his messages have since been deleted.
The police released the footage because they can’t identify the attacker. The release stated that on June 9, police were called to an illegal gambling den in Richmond Hill where they found a 28-year-old suffering from serious injuries and who was taken to a hospital. It’s believed the attacker met the victim before the game began and battered him over an unpaid debt.
Check out the action for yourself.
